A26932:371
Gildas Salvianus: The Reformed Pastor
Gildas Salvianus, the reformed pastor showing the nature of the pastoral work, especially in private instruction and catechizing : with an open confession of our too open sins : prepared for a day of humiliation kept at Worcester, Decemb. 4, 1655 by the ministers of that county, who subscribed the agreement for catechizing and personal instruction at their entrance upon that work / by their unworthy fellow-servant, Richard Baxter ...Gildas Salvianus, the reformed pastor shewing the nature of the pastoral work, especially in private instruction and catechizing : with an open confession of our too open sins : prepared for a day of humiliation kept at Worcester, Decemb. 4, 1655 by the ministers of that county, who subscribed the agreement for catechizing and personal instruction at their entrance upon that work / by their unworthy fellow-servant, Richard Baxter ...
London: printed by Robert White for Nevil Simmons, 1656
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
And for their damnatory Sentences, they were more presumptuous then their Laws; Few men could stand in another's way, or fall out, but one of ⟨p. 147⟩them must be an Heretic before they had made an end. Small differences were named damnable Heresies. Though they had enough among them that were such indeed, (whereof some of the Clergy were almost always the causes and fomenters) yet did they so multiply them by their imputation, that their Catalogues swelled beyond the credit of charity. And he that had the highest reputation, was usually safest from the blot, and had power to make others heretics almost at his pleasure; and if a man had once got the vote and fame, it was dangerous gainsaying him. Had Vigilantius or Jovinian had Hieroms name, some of their heresies might possibly have been articles of faith.
And for their damnatory Sentences, they were more presumptuous then their Laws; Few men could stand in anothers way, or fall out, but one of ⟨p. 147⟩them must be an Heretick before they had made an end. Small differences were named damnable Heresies. Though they had enough among them that were such indeed, (whereof some of the Clergy were almost alwaies the causes and fomenters) yet did they so multiply them by their imputation, that their Catalogues swelled beyond the credit of charity. And he that had the highest reputation, was usually safest from the blot, and had power to make others hereticks almost at his pleasure; and if a man had once got the vote and fame, it was dangerous gainsaying him. Had Vigilantius or Jovinian had Hieroms name, some of their heresies might possibly have been articles of faith.
And as they were dangerously forward on one side to make every small mistake a Heresy, and cause divisions in the Church by their unjust condemnations; so many on the other hand were as forward to provoke them, by novelties or false conceits, especially about the Trinity, and the person and natures of Christ; So that unquiet spirits knew not when or where to rest: And multitudes of them did turn cheaters and deluders of the vulgar, by pretending to Miracles, and Revelations, and Visions, and drawing the people deeper into superstition by such means, (as Boniface Moguntinus wrote to Pope Zechariah about the hypocritical Saint Aldebert.) And in that age especially when few learned men (as Erasmus complaineth) did escape the suspicion of heresy, and he that was a Mathematician was counted a Magician, it had been more wit to have silenced some unnecessary verities, then to have angered impatient ignorance. Virgilius might have talked more